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I wanted to take a minute to let you all know about a project I am going to be starting up on Februrary 1st. It’s called “02.2013” and the concept is fairly simple: I am going to chronicle my experiences daily through the month of February here on the blog.

Other than that, I don’t know what will come of it. I’d say the biggest difference between this project and my normal entries is there should be a more cohesive element to the 28 poems I intend to write.

I hope you all will check in daily with me, and join me through this journey. Should be a lot of fun.

it’s chutes and ladders
and ups and downs
and elevators that go to nowhere
and people who talk to much
and the quiet ones
who you always have to worry about
and there’s just so much noise
and noise and noise
excessive noise
and there’s cars that rip by
and invisible night pedestrians
in all black who you almost hit
who you only see in your rear view mirror
and they’re condemning the building
to make a church
and they’re imploding the church
to make a big box business store
and the grass dies beneath the floorboards
but the people live above the linoleum
and there’s a man playing a violin
and the sun is out and its day
and we’re bustling and bustling
and we’re packing the groceries
into the cart
and we are hunters
fierce commercial hunters
and we are bringing home the bacon
to the twelve screaming baby birds
and we are feeding them the worm
and raising them to fly
and teaching them to move
at five hundred miles per hour
like the rest of
and the hustle and the bustle
continues on and we are blurs in transit
we are smears on the sides of car windows
and some of us are flies on the windshield
but there is no time to stop
because we have our final destination in mind
and we have no clue how to get there
and the gps is sending us in circles
and the cabby doesn’t speak english
and the line is out the door
and we’re moving, we’re moving
we’re constantly in motion
the world is turning and somedays
it is turning against us
but we keep in motion
at a pace faster than those before us
and the escalators ascend us to heaven
where we check out through the fast lane
ten items or less
with twenty things in our carts
and we are opening the back gate of the minivan
and we are shuffling around the city
and we are listening to the radio song
at 60 beats per minute
and we are motion
we are constant constant motion
and we are double-lane fast food
we are roaring engine
we are dying phone battery
and did anyone notice the violin player?

always the bridesmaid, never the bride
he dresses in your sister’s clothes
and sneaks up behind you
with piano wire
he strangles you
just when things were beginning
to go so well.

lies. lies. lies. lies.

it’s life that’s the killer;
so dramatic, so whiny
callin you at two in the morning
when you gotta work the early shift.
calling lonely and horny
when you gotta work the graveyard shift
and shit, man
you know you gotta call in
because seize the day
carpe diem-
am i right?

but no-
death is the asshole.
the one who punches you
in the kidneys,
makes you piss blood
not true!
not true in the fucking least
life has just perfected
her death costumer.

but life is the day
and death is the night
right?
wrong.
if life is the day
and death is the night
then why do you crave
a little more two a.m.
and a little less
six thirty in the godless
morning?

death is your ally.
your friend
who just wants
to get you drunk.
tell you
to dump that bitch.
she’s just playing games
with your head, man.

life.
shit, man.
life is your friend
sometimes.
death is always waiting
by the phone
for you to call and
hear me, you:

when life stabs you in the back,
when she
sleeps with your best friend
and turns off your alarm
so you’re late for work.

when life cancels your insurance
just before driving your car
into the first brick wall
she finds.

when she strikes you
with sodium penethol,
truth serum,
just before
your lifetime achievement speech
and calls your mom
and tells her you murdered someone
and the cops catch on
and they break into your house
in the middle of the night
and arrest you for the crime
that life committed,

hear me, you, brothers and sisters.

death will be the friend
who takes a taxi
to the penitentiary
to try and bail
your sorry ass out.

life is the terrorist who hijacks the plane.
death is the friend who is waiting
on the other side
with a sign
with your name on it.

sometimes it’s just too much to ever handle
there’s too many woman with eyes like intelligent design
there’s a sun that has burned for all of us
and will always continue to burn for all of us
and when we don’t have that, we have the moon
we have the moon and the stars and the black silk sky
and the oceans that reflect the light so we’re captured
we’re captured between the two and we don’t have a choice
but to see ourselves as one common entity
we are all, all of us, every single one of us
part of the same vehicle of life, don’t flatter yourself
you are not something special
you are amongst a billion special things
we need to seek this out in one another, in everyone
we need to remember the way
that we help to push the grass out of the ground
we must remember the way that a heart can succumb
to a bass line, i’m not even joking
your heart can literally adjust to the music it hears
and it definitely can adjust to those around you
so i beg of you to answer, why can’t our eyes see
why can’t we appreciate the million instruments
that surround us, and the glorious grandiose
extraterrestial superhuman cataclysmic kaleidoscopic
kandinskily colorful grandiloquent magnum opus of existence?

you don’t know
none of us know
we make up questions
and we find answers
but we can feel each other’s presence
we know when someone is looking at us
we can feel love
never forget that one
we can feel love
sometimes it’s easy to get separated from that
but it’s there
i assure you
right now
i have enough for all of you
and i’m trying to pass it on
i can’t hold onto it
i’ll explode
we’d all explode
be unafraid to love those around you
be unafraid of what is different
because the things that are the same
are boring, they’re boring
and you don’t want to go to the same grocery store
at the same time
to see the same boring faces
and buy the same foods
and check out with the same cashier
every day of your short short short short short life
life is not very long
bad days drag out tugging at our legs
to appreciate the good ones

open your mind
open your eyes
open your arms
open your rib cage
and let that god damn drum beat
let it beat
let it beat like it has never beat before
bleed on the canvas of life
do not be afraid
of being too happy
there is no such thing
there are no limits
that’s the god damn point
you will not put a period on the end of a sentence
you are a conjunction
you are the connective tissue of everything
we need you
i need you
even if i don’t know it
reassess the hatred in your life
what aren’t you doing?
what should you be doing?
who should you be calling?
what do you have to say to who?
i guarantee you
i fucking guarantee you they will be glad to hear it
even if it’s bad news
and there is bad news
just open
regret there not being more hours in the day
and that is all
i want you to imagine yourself smiling
and now i want you to smile
can you do that for me?

#1: TIPS FOR WRITING BETTER GOD DAMN POETRY PART 1: I’m not a big fan of how to guides, especially how to guides on writing, but I really enjoyed writing this. I decided to shoot from the hip. Say what I truly feel. Focus less on the structure of poetry and more on the what keeps me going.

#2: THE OBNOXIOUS SOUND OF MUSIC UPSTAIRS: Most of my pieces I write and five minutes later, I post them to my blog. The fact that this is something I wrote a couple years ago and still held up on my blog made me extremely happy. I don’t write short stories or prose very often, but I was happy to find myself writing this piece, that not only helped me rationalize alot of things from my past, but also better understand love.

#3: MTV: When I sat down to write this, I thought it was gonna be shit. I thought it was gonna be pure angst and cheesy and trying too hard to be trendy, but in the end, I don’t feel that it’s any of those things. I didn’t realize until the comments started coming in that this piece wasn’t just about MTV. It was about the things we lose along the way, sometimes include our whole selves.

#4: AN AMERICAN PORTRAIT: A personal favorite. My trip to California really inspired this one in me. I wanted to speak of this iconic idea of America that we’ve created in our memories and our history, and maybe point us to the fact that it’s time to redefine what it means to be an American.

#5: I AM AN APARTMENT BUILDING: One of those ones where you know the title, and the rest just kind of comes from there. I feel like this piece really helped me to rationalize a lot of aspects of who I am in so many ways. My roommate and I talk about how I don’t really edit, but what I seem to do is rewrite the same poems in different ways until I get what I’m after. This one seems to be a later, but I don’t think necessarily better version of SOMETIMES I FEEL LIKE THERE’S A COWBOY ARGUING WITH A BUDDHIST MONK.

More than anything, what I’d like to say is thank you. Thank you to anyone and everyone who stops by and reads my blog. Poetry is not something that is easily made a career. No one gets into poetry for the money. What I’m in it from is to share something I felt with the growing circle of people around me. I want to inspire people to be better. I want to challenge people to rethink who they are. I want to make a personal connection with someone on the other side of the world as me, and I have been lucky enough to get to connect to so many fantastic people, all with incredible stories and nothing but kindness to give back to me. You’re not a poet until someone reads your poem. I believe that too. Often times, I’ll read poems to my family and friends, and whenever I hit that publish button on wordpress, the same rush of satisfaction and honesty hits me.

Let’s make 2013 the best year there ever was. The world didn’t end, so we still have a responsibility to make our resolutions as courageous as we can, and our words equally as brave.